Monthly Archives: August 2002

The eminent military historian John Keegan has a powerful column in today’s London Telegraph. With respect to the prudence of American action against Saddam Hussein, Keegan asks what would Winston Churchill do? Suffice it to say that Keegan concludes by quoting the final paragraph of Churchill’s magisterial speech from which we take our motto. »

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal agrees that President Bush has full authority under the Constitution to order the U.S. military to depose Saddam Hussein. It argues, however, that under the logic of politics in a democracy, the President should seek approval from Congress. The Journal identifies practical advantages of doing so — to avoid being second-guessed on every decision if things get sticky (don’t count on that one); »

I’ve spent the last few days in Milwaukee, and went to the Brewers game last night. It was a fun night of baseball at beautiful Miller Park, notwithstanding the fact that the teams weren’t very good. Tomorrow the players may go on strike. The players are almost universally condemned as greedy, but I don’t think that is the problem. I think the problem is that they are irrational. The fundamental »

My former colleagues attorneys David Rivkin and Darin Bartrum have a lengthy and scholarly article in yesterday’s National Review Online arguing that both the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. Congress have already authorized the use of force to effect a regime change in Iraq. In 1990, the Security Council adopted resolutions authorizing the use of military force to drive Saddam from Kuwait and “to restore international peace and security »

More on the “melee:” Today’s Star Tribune carries Doug Grow’s column on Spike Moss. Events are moving beyond my poor power to add or detract. I would simply note that Grow turns an issue of governance into an issue of personality and he focuses on the wrong person. Moreover, Grow’s professed inability to decipher Moss is pathetic. Grow’s world is divided into heroes and villains; all heroes are on the »

Cincinatti has of course progressed much further toward a terminal condition than Minneapolis, but if you can see with your own eyes there should be little doubt that Minneapolis is traveling along the same course as Cincinatti. Cincinatti’s recent “melee” has prompted some soul-searching of a kind that would greatly benefit Minneapolis. But don’t hold your breath waiting to find a story like the August 26 Cincinatti Enquirer story “Suburbanites »

The “war with Iraq only if pre-conditions are met” drumbeat, exemplified by the Washington Post editorial I posted last night, has the feel of an anti-war movement that dare not speak its name. It certainly provides great cover. If the war goes badly, they warned us not to proceed without our European allies and without having gained support in the Arab world by “solving” the Israeli-Palestinian conflcit. If the war »

More Mark Steyn on multiculturalism: Even though we are a day late, we must still post Mark Steyn’s latest column on multiculturalism. Here Steyn elaborates on a point we made earlier, tracing the disabling effects of multiculturalism on our efforts to defend ourselves from the Islamofascists who are trying to destroy us. »

More on “the melee:” Today’s Star Tribune reports the civic discord following in the wake of the Minneapolis Chief of Police’s agreement with Spike Moss to fund citizen patrols and to issue police identification cards to Spike and the gang. This phase of the melee’s denoument is technically known as “farce.” »

A Washington Post editorial finds Vice President Cheney’s case that Saddam Hussein is a menace “persuasive.” But the Post demands that, before attempting to topple Saddam, the administration first offer a realistic plan for replacing him with a pluralistic government where “the human rights of every ethnic and religious group are recognized.” That’s a pretty high standard to impose as a pre-condition of protecting our national security. Nonetheless, David Pryce-Jones »

Here’s liberal columnist E. J. Dionne’s take on the New York Democratic primary contest for Governor. It pits Andrew Cuomo against Carl McCall, an African American Dartmouth man. McCall is leading, but one should never under-estimate a Cuomo’s capacity for dirty tricks. Indeed, McCall’s campaign has accused Cuomo’s of smearing McCall’s running-mate. My favorite part of the column is the report that Cuomo has enlisted the infamous Cornel West. At »

More on the “melee:” Today’s Star Tribune follow-up on Thursday’s race riot in north Minneapolis is interesting. Minneapolis’s little-league Jesse Jackson is Spike Moss. Today’s article demonstrates his facility in exploiting the criminal misconduct of others to shake the money tree. The article also describes negotiations between the Minneapolis Chief of Police and Moss regarding nuts-and-bolts law enforcement issues. Am I the only one who wonders why the police chief »

Terry Eastland’s piece on the Weekly Standard’s web page reports on a federal class action lawsuit challenging the federal government’s affirmative action program regarding its own employees. Eastland demonstrates the cynicism and absurdity of that program. Bill Clinton promised to “mend” affirmative action. Yet, the government apparently has preferred minority candidates over better qualified whtes where the overall representation of the minority group in the relevant job category was one-tenth »

Welcome to new readers who are referred by our button on Real Clear Politics. Let us take a moment to introduce ourselves. We are three middle-aged guys, all practicing lawyers and all formerly on the left, who have progressed rightward over the years. We use the Power Line to point out news items and analyses that we think are important; to cajole and, we hope, to persuade; and to attack »

Garment’s autobiography, Crazy Rhythm is a classic. Trunk, my memory easily runs back to the Nixon administration. As leftists at the time, Rocket Man and I viewed “Tricky Dick” as entirely evil. Although I no longer hold that view, I must admit that, at every stage of my progession to the right, I have continued to dislike Nixon and his presidency. A wise conservative, not bothered by Watergate, once told »

As Rocket Man’s post of the excellent Barbara Amiel column below suggests, we generally find little that we like, and much that we dislike, in the New York Times. In catching up with the paper over the past two days, however, I have found two articles that are each worthy of your attention. For those whose memory does not run back to the Nixon administration, Leonard Garment should be described »

WorldNetDaily today recounts the revealing e-mail exchange between our own Trunk and Gregory Sullivan of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs prior to the publication of Trunk’s article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune establishing Arafat’s responsibility for the 1973 murder of U.S. diplomats in Sudan and the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking in which a wheelchair-bound American was murdered. The snippiness of Sullivan’s e-mail is worth noting, but I want »